Numerous non-operative therapies for morbid obesity have been tried in the past with virtually no permanent success. Surgical methods of treating morbid obesity, such as open, laparoscopic and endoluminal gastric bypass surgery aiming to permanent malabsorption of the food, have been increasingly used with greater success. However, current methods for performing a gastric bypass involve time-consuming and highly dexterity dependent surgical techniques as well as significant and generally highly invasive modifications of the patient's gastrointestinal anatomy. These procedures are reserved only for the severely obese patients because they have a number of significant complications, including the risk of death.
Accordingly, there is a need for methods which avoid the drawbacks of gastric bypass surgery and influence the digestion of a patient in a more specific and aimed way, such as primarily influencing and modifying entero-hepatic bile cycling rather than the digestive tract itself.